For Different Generations, What Even Is News?

The final speaker in this AANZCA 2024 conference session is Kirsty Anderson, whose interest is in how younger and older news audiences use the news differently. Interviews with news users bear this out: for younger users news is whatever pops up on their social media feeds, while older users might regard only fully fact-checked information as news.

News is critical to societies, of course, and journalism has a special status in terms of news. But this is under threat as news is now available anywhere, any time, and also from sources other than conventional journalism. This is also expressed in considerable differences between different news audiences, especially as stratified by age; the present study ran five online focus groups with news users of different ages in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Online, TV, and radio were the main news sources for participants, and traditional news media still dominated here; some 18% used social media as a primary source, and this was skewed strongly towards younger users. Several factors also impacted strongly on news source selection: in particular, the expected veracity of news strongly affected which sources people chose. Less important factors included mood, timeliness, and format (e.g. TikTok videos).

For younger users, social connection, factuality, and timeliness were especially important, for older users, emotional, celebrity, and local news were uniquely important factors. Keeping informed, sharing news with others, and finding practically useful information were also important reasons for seeking out the news. If news does not meet these needs, people will switch to other sources (e.g. from domestic to international news outlets). Immediacy (including live reporting and live news feeds) as well as veracity emerged as particularly desired features in news coverage. These two features are not always compatible, of course.

It is important for journalistic organisations to better understand these audience needs and wants; there clearly are significant differences between younger and older news audiences, and these may be further exacerbated by changing modes of news consumption.